


interlude: feathered sylph, folk of air

by niuu



Series: interlude: a retelling of fairytales [5]
Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Mermaids, Misunderstandings, Ocean, Requited Love, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28437306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niuu/pseuds/niuu
Summary: To forsake a bond made under moonlight and storm so easily shows just how fickle my loyalties are. To betray someone you have known for eternity; to seek out the heart of another and let the flourishes of passion blind your eyes like the rising sun is the worst kind of treachery. I was too late to realize that what I thought was forever with him was just a dalliance compared to the forever I had with you.
Relationships: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid/Prinsesse | Princess
Series: interlude: a retelling of fairytales [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902544
Kudos: 1





	1. i. the sea heeds thy cries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrostedLillies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostedLillies/gifts).



> Here’s a late Christmas gift to you, my love! I wish you all the best in the upcoming year and I hope only good things bless themselves upon your family & friends and you. Enjoy your present! <3
> 
> Lines inspired by quotes:
> 
> “I am the dream you are dreaming. When you want to awaken, I am that wanting.”  
> — **Rainer Maria Rilke** , from “Ich bin, du Ängstlicher. Hörst du mich nicht,” Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy (Riverhead Books, 1996).
> 
> “sweet moon language— ”  
> — **Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz** , tr. by Daniel Ladinsky, from “With That Moon Language.”
> 
> “But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”  
> — **James Baldwin** , from Another Country (Dial Press, 1962).
> 
> “Enclosing his whetstone gently, he comments on the nature of a human heart: ‘You are too harsh on your kind. Without ever having lived a life that is not your own, you cannot say, you despise someone else. All your hate in them has roots in you. If you ever _love_ enough to displace all that fear and all that hatred, call my name. Call me, then. I refuse to return every time to have my affection accused of crime. There is only so much a heart can take before it falters, stutters, and breaks.’”  
> — **Sally Hope**.

♆

To forsake a bond made under moonlight and storm so easily shows just how fickle my loyalties are. To betray someone you have known for eternity; to seek out the heart of another and let the flourishes of passion blind your eyes like the rising sun is the worst kind of treachery. I was too late to realize that what I thought was forever with _him_ was just a dalliance compared to the forever I had with you. 

Princess, I had that with you. I had that happy ending. That fairytale fantasy so many of your kind wishes to have. I had it all, yet I didn't understand until now that what I had thought was just a cracked shell was instead a pearl — a pearl so pale, so effervescent that it was something to be cherished.

Birthed between the lurid shades of vibrant life and the pearly slabs of marble death, we forged a kinship that could rival the stars, that stirred the seven seas. We were something forbidden, but had I chosen to take you and drag you down into the depths, then perhaps we could’ve been something everlasting.

I should've cared for you in the way you deserved, wrapped you in a festoon of pearls, and led you down to the ocean floor to rest upon an oyster bed. I should've fallen in love with you, instead. 

Why is it only now that the mere thought of you warms my scales and sends a flush upon my cheeks? You are gone; you are dead. _I killed you,_ and I hardly know how to live with myself anymore.

If only I had loved enough to displace all that fear and all that hatred, then perhaps you would still be here. Call me by my name, beautiful maiden. Call me your little mermaid. Call me _yours_. 

I was yours before I even met you. And you were mine. 

The rhythmic pulse of the sea is steady today. It has its own symphony, more soothing than whale song, and I float beneath the foam, listening to it. I breathe in salt and exhale the song of the sea.

I heard every name you had for me and wrapped in the blue embrace of the ocean I watched from afar as you whispered them to yourself like an incantation — a sea spell. You claim that I placed a thrall upon you, but you were the one who had me ensnared. Perhaps we were both entangled in each other's enchantments, two halves of a whole. 

Daughter of the earth, I scoured the trenches and cavernous bowels in search of gifts suitable enough to bring you. Bestowing you with the treasures of the sea, I wished to show you my home, to bring you beneath the waves. The luminescent wraiths skimming the surface would've wound around your wrists; the jellyfish's tendrils would've adorned your neck; and the water would've clothed your body, hemming you in silver. 

Your dress of lace and white, that delicate veil obscuring your shy features enraged me. Who would hide such beauty? Your coral-tinged cheeks and hair as ebony as the black-tipped feathers of seagulls have always beguiled me. But, I could not think at that moment. All that surged in my mind was my prince. 

I could only recall how you stole him from me; how he would pin you against his body, your lips red like the sun-damp roses grown in your palace's gardens when he was finished ravaging you. Is that not love? 

No, that isn’t what love is. I did not consider for a single moment how you were trading one opulent cage for another, how you would never intentionally hurt me. I did not heed your weeping that night before you were forced to bound yourself to him; I could not bear to listen to pleas and apologies spoken over tepid tea and midnight wonders. 

Now, it is I who must apologize. Who must beg for your forgiveness. 

A thousand regrets spill from my lips, melancholy careening the landscape of my cheekbones. The current brings the pearls falling from my eyes to the surface, and my sisters ask why I languish, why sorrow wraps its tendrils around my heart. Their hands touch mine, brushing my tears away, but they will not stop flowing. 

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. _Please, come back._ I promise that I will learn to love you properly. I will be what you deserve. Who needs a prince with fox-fur hair and blood-red lips if you have a girl whose devotion stretches farther than even the sea waves can reach? Who needs supple legs to walk upon the land if you have a girl who would carry you across the snow-tipped mountains and secluded valleys? Who needs a happily-ever-after when you already have your happy ending right in front of you?

You are the dream I wake from and find myself wanting. You are the precious thing I once held in my hands and lost so easily. Sometimes, I find myself drifting, and when I awaken, the tide has taken me away to your palace. A cacophony of stone and black marble. It is a desolate thing, so dismal without your presence to brighten its cold facade. 

I imagine your gilded harp collecting dust, your damask books ample with legends and tragedies remaining untouched, your father's cup overflowing with mulled wine as he drowns himself in depravity — that poison of his enlightening something within him. All the secrets you have told overflow, cleaving the world into two, and I find myself wanting to drown in them alongside your father. 

I gaze up at the sheer cliffs, jutting with crystal teeth. Watch the waves throw themselves against the unyielding rock like whales beaching themselves, foam spitting. As I keep myself afloat, fingers tracing the water, a thought seeps in. Perhaps I should kill the prince. I would maim his body, drag him down into the depths until he bloats like a pufferfish. Rend his milky skin to bits until he is painted vermilion. Then and only then could my rage be curbed. 

But, what good has my anger done for me? Look at what it did to you. 

I sink back into the sea for I cannot bear to see the moonlight puddling down any longer, casting everything in light. It reminds me of you as much as the moon reminded you of me.

My grandmother comforts me, runs wrinkled hands along my back. "Don't lose heart, dear one," she tells me sagely. "Do not yield to bitterness. Try to understand this feeling and let it wash over you like the coming tide." 

I do not yet understand her wise words, but as the years pass, I will. For now, I can only blame myself and sob in her wizened arms. Our hair tangles together like seaweed, hers the white of froth and pearls, mine gleaming like sunbeams or the wrought gold of your hairpins. 

Time passes immeasurably. Ships sail. Seagulls shriek. Humans come and go. My father spurns the sea. My grandmother turns to foam. My sisters sing mysterious songs to the golden stars and brush their lustrous tresses with shimmering combs; they spent the years smearing their lips across a palette of bodies. I linger — sempiternal. And you fade to memory. 

Sometimes, we reside in a flame-stricken sea, watch the humans glide in fleets upon the water. Other times, there is peace. Watercolor dawns and playful winds full of gaiety. Children on the shore, sleeves fringed with lace, fluttering ribbons in their hair. 

And your palace stands, draped in vines and cracked with ruin, nature reclaiming a boon of mankind. All that remains is an empty, vast entity left abandoned.

I swim there one night, pull myself up upon the marble steps, and gaze up at the blushing magnolia tree, its branches profuse with blossoms. Petals drift on the water, a beautiful barrage that rivals the capricious sea, gentle in their loveliness as the salty ocean laps the dark rocks. The moon shines down on me, luminous. I breathe in the floral scent of spring and feathers tickle my nose. 

My eyes open, and there you stand in heavenly glory. You merely laugh at the expression upon my face; how I must look at this moment, I can only imagine. I swear you look like a dream, fleeting as the breeze. Wings unfurl, arching behind your back, holding so still that I can only think of the avenging angels mortals pray to as they sail across the sea. 

Fair princess, how much time has passed since we first met that fateful night? How long has it been since the moon last burned into us? An eternity, I reckon, it has been since you were last swept in lace and white. White as my skin. White as the moonlight. 

Neither rhapsody nor threnody escapes from me. You don’t sing to the heart of the sea — my heart — and I don’t lament to yours. We merely linger, ephemeral, as the earth and sea meet once again.


	2. ii. the land mourns thy loss

♆

Moonlight, in poetry, is often written so that it baths a fair maiden in silver light, making her shine dew-bright. Death, though, is used to inspire even the most jubilant with melancholy; it is full of macabre imagery and harrowing introspections. For me, death is a mother’s beauty. And now, I donned the cloak of night and followed my mother into the endless dark. 

As I took death into my arms and released my final breath, I basked in love’s holy light. My little mermaid took me above the waves and watched as I floated up towards the stars. There was freedom and hope and . . . nothing. Nothing happened afterward. There was no grand welcoming or pearly gates that opened up for me. 

Neither heaven nor hell awaited me. Religion became such an abstract concept when your heart no longer beat. Whatever god may have existed, they had no interest in mortals. At least, not any longer. And as there was nothing left to do, I chose to wait instead. 

I waited — for however long I do not know — until my dress of lace and white faded into mist. I waited until the clouds grew daring enough to wisp on past me. I waited until the screeching voice of the wind softened for me as it grew used to my presence. My little pearl, you can not even begin to imagine how long I waited, trapped between the sea and the sky. 

But, do not fret, for sorrow never found me up here. I never found myself regretting you as you did me; I didn’t allow my bitterness to turn itself into a weapon that could be used against my love. I stood firm in my decision to protect the softness in my soul, and even now, I refuse to part with it. 

If I ever falter and forget what it means to be gentle; if I ever lose the warmth in my eyes, remind me, my darling, that kindness is never a weakness. Help me remember what it means to be human. Teach me how to forgive, for too many of us have been hurt, and too many of us never learn that perhaps the only forgiveness we owe is to ourselves. But, perhaps, you are the wrong person to ask to teach me forgiveness.

The wind didn’t bestow any of its archaic knowledge to me, and the clouds never taught me how to be as brazen as they are, how to live without shame. I taught myself that. 

Over the years, as I watched the moon’s tears fall into the sea and the stars twinkle ominously, I parried off both the guilt and disgust I held for myself. I never came to hate the love I had for you, but I was ashamed that I fell for someone with cupid-bow lips and even softer hips. Whenever I’d catch myself staring at the long cascade of your hair or the flutter of your lashes, I’d poison myself with nasty words and cruel barbs that tugged at my skin until it bled. 

But, the centuries were long and Time was weary. Eventually, something changed. As the clouds drifted past me, the wind paused and wound itself around me. 

"Daughter of dirt, lover of brine, it is time," it spoke. "Over the years, you have proven that a mortal’s soul can become as light as a feather, and so, that is my gift to you. The gift of flight. The gift of everlasting freedom. Fly free, my child, and soar to new heights."

A sudden weight pulled at my back, strange appendages that when I turned back to look at resembled bird wings. Finely-feathered, yet I could feel the strength hiding behind their delicate appearance. They were beautiful and they were _mine_. 

Not a lot has ever belonged to me. My harp, perhaps, and my books, but other than that, hardly anything could be called mine. I’d learned early on that both my life and body weren’t my own; instead, they were for my future husband, whoever he may have been. In another life, I would’ve belonged to the prince, but all along, I’ve just wanted to stand by your side. I don’t even know what happened to the prince, but I can hardly care. Perhaps he found another lovely wife and his lineage continues to this day. 

You’ve never been mine; I’d have to be foolish to delude myself into thinking that you ever could be. But, I wouldn’t have minded being yours. If you were too elusive for me, always out of my reach, then I vowed to always be near you, right there beyond the horizon. 

Look where I am now. No longer anywhere near you. Stuck among the clouds, tethered to what my kind calls the "heavens." I slip into the wind’s stream and watch over the world; I dive into the unknown and rediscover what has already been found by the greatest explorers and conquerors. 

The breeze is ever so helpful as it guides me along its path. I can never thank it enough for allowing me this freedom. For many years I have been alone, but I have not allowed myself to ever feel lonely. I cannot afford it. 

If I let myself think about the salty scent of your hair or your silver eyes, brilliant and bright, as they followed my movement when I danced on the shore, in the heart of hearts, I must confess that I do not what would happen. I know better now that I can’t always be some lovelorn maiden who dreams of being taken beneath the waves. 

And so, for a time even longer than when I waited up in the sky, I do not think about you. I don’t even allow the memory of you to shatter the calmness of my mind. I bask in the sun, let the wind currents carry me to places both forbidden and forsaken, and never let my feet touch the ground. 

I watch cities grow and people move across land and sea. Things come and go. Kingdoms fall. Memories fade. Everything changes with enough time. And the sea is always beneath me as I soar above it. My wings take me far and I grow to love them, as I loved you so long ago. 

Sometimes, I listen to music played on harps, skilled fingers caressing the strings, the women even more talented than I ever was. Other times, I visit ivory towers of academia, lush with knowledge and youth, thick tomes lining every wall. And one time, I even dare to fly over the ocean and reach out to brush the waves as they roll on by; they remind me of you. 

In the distant future, some years later, the wind calls to me insistently. There is urgency in its voice. It whips gusts into my face and I let it lead me away from an arcadia of sun-damp roses I’d found earlier. 

"What do you require of me, dear friend?" I ask, wrapping my hands around its ethereal frame. 

"It’s time," is all it says. "It’s time, it’s time. Hurry, for dawn approaches quickly."

And it propels me forwards, sending me spiraling into the night. How long I glide, I do not know. When a palace standing in ruin appears in my line of sight, my heart sinks. It seems to be crumbling away with every year, but I know what it is. My former abode. A former life where I was in love with a daughter of the sea, a prince from a far off kingdom loved me, and a little mermaid who saved that prince from his untimely demise loved him. 

In the end, it all leads back here, doesn’t it, little oyster? Yet when I should feel only dread, all I feel is a lightness in my chest, as if there were some sort of glow in my heart. 

The wind whispers to me. "Watch." And I do.

You breach from the water, timeless and beautiful as the first time I laid my eyes upon you. Slender, bare arms pull your body onto the marble steps and you sit, shimmering tail flicking absently, stirring the sea.

I cannot stop myself as I approach you silently. I cannot breathe as I take in your otherworldly appearance. It has been so long. An eternity, perhaps, since we last met. 

Your eyes remain closed, fine lashes laced with droplets. When they open, fluttering, I can’t help but laugh, wings shifting. The wind nuzzles my ear and retreats, leaving us alone.

Moonlight puddles down onto the world, yet it burns into us with a ferocity, silver fire instead of a cool balm against my skin; I find that I do not mind. It makes me think about how I was once swept in lace and white. White as your skin. White as the moonlight. 

Rhapsodies and threnodies fail us. They cannot express how I feel for you. You do not sing and nor do I. It has been so long since I last sang a song to the heart of the sea — your heart. But, it hardly matters. All that matters is that we now meet once again.

_I have missed you, my little mermaid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and criticism are always welcome and in fact are encouraged. I honestly can’t believe I have to say this, but trolling and straight-up hate and negativity will not be tolerated. This may be fanfiction, but if you don’t have actual constructive criticism to give me and are just here to hate, I’m going to have to ask you to not read my works or refrain from commenting at all. Let’s all be civil people here.


	3. iii. reunion

I take your face into my hands and bring your lips to mine. We meet like the waves did with the sand eons ago, when they crashed into each other for the very first time. Your arms come up and wind around my neck, but your fingers grip my feathers as if to keep me from flying away.

When I pull back to look at your heartbreaking beauty, I can see pearls cascading from your quicksilver eyes. They land in the frothing water and sink to the depths like I did centuries ago. 

“My little mermaid,” I whisper, “I have returned.” 

Your composure breaks, shatters right before me. I gather you in my embrace and let you cry by night. My wings wrap around us, shielding us from the cruel world outside. 

_I love you, daughter of the air,_ goes your unspoken confession. _I love you more than the seven seas. I have spent the years loving you to infinity, and all I ask of you is for a chance to love you in the way you deserve._ But, don’t worry, my love, for the wind carries your words to my ear and I hear it all nonetheless. 

The sweet moon speaks its language and burns into us as it always has. We are white as lace, white as the moonlight. You sing our intertwined rhapsodies and threnodies, and I sing them back to the heart of the sea. 

We lasted through both evermore and nevermore, and now I shall stay with you forever. For as long as the sea churns and the wind blows, and not a second more. 

Dawn approaches swiftly in all its blushing glory and the sky calls me back. I kiss your temple once, twice, a third time. You gaze at me, not with tears, but with the gentlest swell of hope I have ever seen. Releasing my hands, you watch as the gales whisk me away, ruffling my feathers, and I watch as the sea reclaims you. 

This is only the beginning, my little mermaid. If all you ask of me is to be given a second chance, then all I ask of you is this: wait for me. Wait for my return, and I will always come back to you.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and criticism are always welcome and in fact are encouraged. I honestly can’t believe I have to say this, but trolling and straight-up hate and negativity will not be tolerated. This may be fanfiction, but if you don’t have actual constructive criticism to give me and are just here to hate, I’m going to have to ask you to not read my works or refrain from commenting at all. Let’s all be civil people here.


End file.
